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A comment on Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive compared to iPads?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive co... by _ph_ on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @04:00AM (#26152187)
The patent situation and the marketing behavior of E-ink are certainly important factors. But it doesn't explain why those companies, which do create E-ink devices often are not innovative. The Kindle is a nice piece of hardware and some of the models are even cheap. But why isn't there a better software on it, making it a really versatile device? Same with most e-reading competitors. Few offer anything beyond the reading capability and basically none are programmable by the user. Just having a Kindle tuned for being end-user programming friendly would be huge.

That is one thing I got my reMarkable2 for. It is a great device and very useful. But one thing stands out: it runs Linux and offers you shell access. You can just upload your own programs to it and tweak many things. Even just having the ability to upload your own "power off" picture to it is a really nice thing[1]. If the makers of the reMarkable would push a bit more into the direction of enabling users to create software, as in documenting the system and creating APIs/libraries to use for integration into the existing software stack, this could grow enormously. The hardware is great, now comes the software.

What I dream of, would be scenarios which make great use of the always-visible screen content. Like a dashboard which shows you your upcoming appointments, unread notifications, perhaps just the weather status. It refreshes every 5 minutes but otherwise doesn't consume energy or distract you with animations. Or being able to control the e-Reader from your computer. Reading a man-page? Why not send it to the e-Ink screen and have it displayed there until some other content is sent? Like a book which you keep open beside your computer, just remotely configurable. So much things could be done by just adding software to existing e-Ink hardware. And if such an environment grows, probably so will the hardware offerings targeting this market.

1: my favorite lock screen image is the GoT map "The North 02". It is unbelievable on the e-Ink and looks like printed on paper.

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Re:Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive co... by robinsoh on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @04:21AM (#26152308)
> If the makers of the reMarkable would push a bit more into the direction of enabling users to create software, as in documenting the system and creating APIs/libraries to use for integration into the existing software stack, this could grow enormously. The hardware is great, now comes the software.

The remarkable is fully open source isn't it? Have any users done work towards adding functionality?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why are e-ink note-taking devices so expensive co... by _ph_ on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @04:45AM (#26152444)
Yes, the reMarkable is fully open source and there are user-created additions. This is something I really like about the reMarkable. I just think that the company could push even more for third-party software. Especially for more beginner-level hacking.
[ Parent | on HN ]